Halloween Haunt
This article is about the primary Halloween event that is intended for teens and adults. For the daytime festivities of Halloween at the park, see ''The Great Pumpkin Fest.'' Halloween Haunt (Also known simply as Haunt, formerly known as FearFest) is a seasonal event that occurs during the late evening of Fridays and Saturdays in late September and all of October at Kings Island. The event is based on the traditions of the Halloween season, with the park being decorated in macabre scenery, and new attractions (mostly haunted mazes) that feature actors portraying various monsters and evil characters that guests will encounter. In some cases, animatronics and other special effects are also used in this event. Each of the attractions exclusive to this event focus on different themes of monsters, such as werewolves, zombies, and cannibals. In addition to the mazes, a large number of attractions, usually all of which aren't located in either Planet Snoopy or Soak City, are also open during the event. History As the name suggests, Halloween Haunt is a seasonal event at Kings Island that celebrates the primary traditions of the Halloween season, particularly the concept of macabre settings and themes, touching on one's fears, and the depiction of various monsters popularized in horror media such as zombies, ghosts, and serial killers. The event began as FearFest in 2000, when Paramount owned and operated the park. During this time, Paramount had a heavier focus on intellectual properties, and multiple horror properties. Some of the attractions were based on Paramount's own works, such as Friday the 13th, and Sleepy Hollow were featured, in addition to Cassandra Peterson's Elvira character and Bram Stoker's Dracula, the latter of which was included multiple years due to being in the public domain. The following year after Cedar Fair acquired all of Paramount's parks (including Kings Island) in 2006, the event was renamed to its current name of Halloween Haunt. Since this retheming, the event no longer focuses on notable intellectual properties in the horror genre of various media, though some of the music played during the event has come from films that fit the Halloween season, such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Beetlejuice. Almost all of the haunted houses in the event, especially mainstay attractions that have been around for years like Wolf Pack and Urgent Scare, are housed in buildings of former attractions, while others are located in backstage areas. Others are sometimes located in areas that are temporarily closed to In 2019, Kings Island introduced a new feature to the event called Hallow-Tween. This event features altered versions of some of the mazes and scare zones, for guests who might be considered too old for the festivities of The Great Pumpkin Fest, but still too young to brave the mazes of Halloween Haunt. The altered mazes primarily removed all scare actors, and replaced them with hosts that gave instructions on how to get through the maze, which were reworked into escape rooms. Interestingly, one of these altered mazes was C.H.A.O.S.: Expedition Orion, which served as a teaser for the coaster that was set to open in the same area the following year in 2020. Current Houses and Scare Zones Note that although many of the houses may share the same name throughout different years, the layout and features of each maze sometimes changes, with the theme remaining primarily the same. * Backwoods Bayou - Located in the Tower Gardens to the left of the Eiffel Tower and the Grand Carousel. Themed to a dark and murky swamp in which This attraction name was previously used for a scare zone in part of the pathway where International Street connects to both Rivertown and Coney Mall. * Wolf Pack - Located in the Action Zone section of the park, and housed in the former loading station of Son of Beast. The queue and exit for this attraction also use that of Son of Beast. This maze focuses on guests attempting to trek through a dark forest where werewolves are said to lurk. * Blackout - Located in a warehouse near the entrance of The Bat, the latter of which has alterations made to its queue line to allow line space for the maze. Blackout ''is themed to the fear of the dark and claustrophobia. As the name suggests, much of this maze takes place in the dark, with little to no lighting. Attraction descriptions never make it clear what kind of monsters are featured in this maze. * ''C.H.A.O.S. - Located in a warehouse across from the entrance of Flight of Fear. In this maze themed to a science laboratory, guests volunteer to be test subjects for a new experimental drug, with the drug's effects indicated when guests enter a funhouse tunnel in part of the maze. Flashing lights, scare actors, and other effects, are used to simulate the drug's effects. * Urgent Scare - Housed in Coney Mall at the former building of the Action Theater. This maze is set inside a hospital where a zombie outbreak has gotten out of control. Actors primarily portray infected staff and patients, in addition to mannequins that are brutally dismembered. * Kill-Mart - Housed in a former arcade building of Coney Mall. This maze is themed to a shopping center that was initially a safe haven from a zombie apocalypse, but has since been overrun by the infected. With this maze and Urgent Scare, both of which share a zombie theme, being located in the back area of Coney Mall, the area was rethemed to Zombie Mall for the 2019 season. * Field of Screams - Located in a back area past The Racer at part of where Dinoasaurs Alive! once stood. This attraction is a take on the classic haunted cornfield maze, and features scare actors posing as farmers, living scarecrows, and other creepy characters, which decorations including an area with haybales. * Slaughterhouse - This maze was originally featured in the Action Zone at the Chicken Shack restaurant, but it has since been moved to a new building in Rivertown that can be seen year-round from the queue line of The Beast. Slaughterhouse ''is themed to a butcher shop for animal meat, though the characters portrayed by the actors are heavily implied to also be cannibals. Actors are dressed primarily as meat cooks, with some wearing pig masks, possibly loosely and unofficially inspired by the ''Saw series of horror films, in addition to the primary concept possibly being loosely based on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. * Madame Fatale's Cavern of Terror - Located in the attraction building that formerly housed The Crypt. This maze is themed to a wax museum, where it's implied that the titular owner may have soaked living people in hot wax for her museum's figures. In 2019, the Lights Out! subtitle was added to the maze's name, which adds a darkness aspect similar to Blackout. * Dance of the Macabre - Located underneath the Eiffel Tower. This scare zone is themed to the French Revolution, and features scare actors dressed in elegant old time clothing that has been damaged in some form, and with noticeable wounds primarily on their face. The scare zone features a photo-op station based on old-time painted portraits, a banquet table overrun with rats, and torsos impaled on spiked poles. * Pumpkin Eater - This scare zone debuted in the 2018 season, and is featured in the area of Coney Mall that connects to Rivertown, with the Backlot Stunt Coaster off to the side. This area is decorated with a large number of pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns, some of which can be seen hanging above guests heads. Dismembered corpses can also be found inside larger pumpkins, though these are covered with burlap sacks during the day to avoid frightening younger guests who are only present for day time festivities of The Great Pumpkin Fest. A pumpkin monster animatronic hiding behind fake bushes will occasionally make its presence known in this area. * Rivertown Reaping - Set in the area of the same name. Unlike most scare zones, this area does not have a large focus on new scenery that's exclusive to the event, and instead just uses scare actors themed to the old time theme of Rivertown. Former Houses and Scare Zones * Carn-Evil - Located in a warehouse behind The Great Pumpkin Coaster. This maze was themed to evil clowns at a haunted carnival. * Club Blood - Located in a warehouse near the entrance of The Bat. This maze was themed to an adult-oriented club and bar that featured vampires as the employees and general patrons. Closed in 2014 to make way for Blackout. * Board to Death - Located in a warehouse across from Flight of Fear's entrance. Themed to giant board games, such as Monopoly, checkers, and Scrabble. Actors generally portrayed monster versions of board game pieces. * Tombstone Terror-Tory - Located at the former entrance of White Water Canyon, with the Kings Island and Miami Valley Railroad used as part of the experience. In this maze, guests would board the aforementioned train with the expectation of going on a peaceful train ride through the woods. Halfway through, actors dressed as Old West bandits would "hijack" the train, causing the guests to be let off elsewhere, with the conductor noting that the nearby path was the only way back to the station. Guests would then travel down the maze, with several actors portraying hostile figures and monsters based on the Old West genre of fiction. The maze would conclude at the entrance of White Water Canyon, which was closed due to autumn not being an appropriate season for water rides in the Cincinnati area. After the opening of Mystic Timbers required a new entrance to be built for White Water Canyon, the maze was retired. However, the Old West theme of this maze continues to be used, and is currently being used for the Rivertown Reaping scare zone. During Paramount's ownership of the park, this layout was used for a maze themed to Sleepy Hollow, 1999 Tim Burton film from Paramount that starred Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, which is in turn based on the folklore tale of a similar name by Washington Irving. * Cornstalkers ''- Located in the Tower Gardens. A corn maze, featuring monsters based on scarecrows and other farm-based characters. Closed to make way for ''Backwoods Bayou. A similar maze called Field of Screams would later open in 2018, in part of the area where Dinosaurs Alive! once operated. * Cutthroat Cove - Located in the outdoor dining area of what is now Hank's Mexican Grill in Oktoberfest, across the pond from Viking Fury. This maze was themed to undead pirates, which also had suitable decorations near the pond at the time. The area has not been used for a maze since then, and Cutthroat Cove was not relocated to a new location afterwards. * Holiday Horror - Located in the theater space now occupied by Snoopy's Barnyard Friends. Prior to becoming a petting zoo for farm animals, this area originally housed a show theater, and the area was used for this maze. The maze featured various holidays such as Christmas and Easter, but each of them have been changed significantly in a manner similar to the events of the film The Nightmare Before Christmas, in which elements of Halloween have invaded each holiday. For instance, friendly characters such as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus were replaced with far more evil versions of these characters. Due to the theater being revamped into a petting zoo, the space was no longer available for the maze. Trivia * The majority of Cedar Fair's parks, also use Halloween Haunt as the name for their seasonal Halloween event. Among the exceptions are Cedar Point's HalloWeekends, Valleyfair's ValleyScare, Carowinds' S'Carowinds, and Knott's Berry Farm's Knott's Scary Farm. ** Ironically, the HalloWeekends name used by Cedar Point was previously used by other Cedar Fair parks prior to the acquisition of Kings Island and the rest of Paramount Parks. These were Valleyfair, Dorney Park, and Worlds of Fun. But some of them have also since adapted the Halloween Haunt ''name. ** Even stranger, Cedar Point was not the first Cedar Fair park to feature a Halloween event. It was later implemented to Cedar Point and their other parks shortly after the acquisition of Knott's Berry Farm, which had done Halloween events in prior years. * A common decoration for the event is a large Jack-in-the-Box toy, aptly named Jack. This decoration was originally featured heavily at Planet Snoopy, which was sometimes rethemed to a haunted circus theme during the event. In recent years, it has been seen in front of several arcade and carnival games at Coney Mall. During the day, it does not operate, but once the park transitions to ''Halloween Haunt during the evening, it will casually play a tradition music box version of the nursery song Pop Goes the Weasel, before the head lifts upward while laughing, and the aforementioned music then continues to play in a heavy metal style. It then returns to its music box style as the head lowers. This initially occurred at timed intervals, but recent years have featured this behavior start over shortly after concluding. ** Similar Jack-in-the-Box figures that behave in the same manner can be seen at various Cedar Fair parks for their respective Halloween events. One of them could be found at the entrance to Happy Jack's Toy Factory, a former maze featured at sister park Cedar Point's HalloWeekends ''event. This was the only case of this recurring decoration being a promotional item for a haunted maze. * Some of the attraction names at Kings Island have been reused either from or by mazes at other Cedar Fair parks. For instance, Cedar Point has also used ''Carn-Evil, Club Blood, Cornstalkers, and Cutthroat Cove ''for their ''HalloWeekends ''mazes throughout the years.. * An animatronic ogre can be found near the entrance to ''The Racer during this event. He's generally sleeping, but will occasionally wake up, and threaten the guests to go away, or he will eat them. This animatronic was previously featured at Cedar Point for their similar Halloweekends event. * A frequent tradition of the event involves renaming the Coney Mall area to "Coney Maul," a play on words referring to the act of violently and gruesomely killing something, like a carnivorous animal would. ** Due to the Coney Mall area always having a carnival theme as the primary area for carnival games and classic carnival rides, the Coney Maul retheme often focuses around a haunted carnival. Several years of the event have featured many scare actors and decorations based on various concepts such as evil clowns, and freak show acts with mutated humans or creatures. * Guests wishing to visit the park, but not interested in the event are able to purchase "No Boo" necklaces with lights to indicate that they do not want the scare actors to interact with them. These only work for scare zones, and do not apply to the haunted mazes. * As with most Halloween events at amusement parks, the actors are not allowed to make any physical contact with guests. In fact, the actors will sometimes improvise if guests intentionally attempt to make physical contact with the actor, usually with sudden movements to startle the guests. ** The closest that actors will get to guests is usually when they blend in with a group of guests, expecting them to turn around and realize a monster is following them. ** The actors will also address guests if they are going the wrong way in a maze, though it is usually in a confrontational manner, or to surprise as if they are aware the guests do not know which direction to go. * All water rides, which include the entirety of Soak City, Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown, White Water Canyon, and Congo Falls, are closed during this event, as the autumn weather of the Cincinnati area is much cooler than in the summer. * At various years of the event, a cemetery is featured, listing various names, as well as a funeral scene. This is currently featured on the pathway past the Eiffel Tower that connects International Street to Coney Mall and Rivertown. Some of the gravestones feature the names of retired attractions, which include Firehawk, Enchanted Voyage, and even a gravestone referencing a time when ''The Racer ''had one set of its cars run backwards, indicated by the text being engraved backwards on the gravestone. Category:Current Attractions Category:Seasonal Attractions Category:Former Attractions Category:Rivertown Category:Coney Mall Category:Planet Snoopy Category:Action Zone Category:Halloween Haunt